Entries tagged with: Destroyer

Destroyer's new album, Poison Season, will be out August 28 via Merge. Where 2012's Kaputt was a unified front, sonically -- all neon-lit, rain-soaked streets, new romantic vibes and fire escape sax -- this one has many different moods. First single "Dream Lover" was a heartland rocker and now we get "Girl in a Sling," which finds Dan Bejar in mournful torch song mode. It comes with an equally dark video, directed by David Galloway who spoke a little about the vibe he was trying to achieve:

We wanted to make a video that dealt with central Destroyer themes: to some, Destroyer is a lech; to some, he is an arsonist; to some, he is a savior. To me, he is the consummate comedian, but he resists that role. So we decided to go the opposite way and make something sad, something tragic, something that fits the new record. The adage "comedy equals tragedy plus time" is attributed to Carol Burnett's mum. Or it might have been Steve Allen. Either way, I always want Dan to do physical comedy, but he resists. He's a natural, though. He's the Pacific Northwest's Buster Keaton, and I hope one day to share that with the world. One day. For now, though, there's just this sadness. This poison season.

You can watch the "Girl in a Sling" video below.

In addition to the new album, Destroyer will also release a companion 12" single on August 28, featuring a remix of "Forces from Above" and "Times Square, This Poison Season" on the flip.

Destroyer plays NYC's Webster Hall on October 4 as part of his fall tour. Jennifer Castle opens and tickets are still available.

Victoria, BC's Frog Eyes will release new LP Pickpocket's Locket on August 28 via Paper Bag Records. The new LP's genesis was a little different than usual. Main main Carey Mercer explains:

My dad left me his acoustic guitar in his will; it was all he had to give, because he wasn't a rich man. I wrote ten songs on it, and I think that was the real gift he gave me: a love of music, not just the way you all love it (music lovers), but also a love of creating it, sowing myself, in some small way, into the story of music.

I was holding the guitar a lot, kind of savoring it: a Martin D-18. I had been making records for a few years with a computer, piling tracks on tracks, writing words over guitar licks already recorded in a studio.

I came to think of an acoustic guitar as somehow akin to a computer, only in the sense that they are both tools of transmission, both effective in their own way.

An acoustic guitar is still, in 2015, a very effective way of transmitting one's songs. I made a deal with myself: write ten songs, write all the words before anyone gets to hear any of the songs, memorize the songs so that I become the hard-drive that the acoustic guitar accesses. I mostly, if not totally, kept to this deal, which is rare: I'm generally pretty easy on myself.

The record features guest appearances by Spencer Krug, and violinist Jesse Zubot. You can listen to "Joe With The Jam" from the album, below.

Frog Eyes will be touring this fall, including dates with Destroyer. They're not on the NYC date of the Destroyer tour (10/4 @ Webster Hall), unfortunately, but all are listed, along with Pickpocket's Locket artwork, tracklist and track stream, below.

Destroyer hasn't released a full length since 2011's excellent Kaputt, but he's finally ready to do that this year. He'll release Poison Season, a double album, on August 28 via Merge in the US and Dead Oceans in the UK. He just shared first single "Dream Lover," which is more of a swaggering upbeat rock song than the sophisti-pop of Kaputt, but still full of saxophones. Listen, and check out the album tracklist, below.

Dan Bejar & co. will also be touring internationally in support of the record for about two months from September to November. That tour hits NYC on October 4 at Webster Hall. That date and many others are with Jennifer Castle. Tickets for Webster are on sale now.

Back in 2008 Hello, Blue Roses, the musical and romantic pairing of Dan Bejar and artist Sydney Vermont, released The Portrait Is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty, an album steeped in '70s folk. (Some of you in NYC may have gone to see them at Glasslands as well.) Seven years later, HBR are back with Album #2, titled WZO. The record was produced by Dan's Swan Lake bandmate and Frog Eyes frontman Carey Mercer, who plays on the album as well. It's out now and you can stream the whole thing below.

Now if we can just get a new Destroyer album. Dan's other other band, The New Pornographers, are currently on tour with Operators.

"This is a throwback to those classic Brill Building basement shows...you know, like when Carol King would do Sonics' covers? It's in the book. That I'm going to write." Carl Newman, defacto leader of Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers, was joking about the deserted Brill Building storefront (technically next door to the famous golden BB entrance) that was hastily converted into a venue for this record release party. Anyone there who bothered to look up could see up into the next floor via holes by the building supports. Same for the floor -- Newman warned "Please don't fall into the abyss!" This was closer in vibe -- and in un-AC'd temperature -- to 285 Kent than something you'd expect in Times Square. It was HOT in there but a cool nod to pop songwriting's past that clearly is an influence on The New Pornographers in general and their great new album, Brill Bruisers, specifically.

The show, which was presented by NPR and hosted by All Songs Considered's (and nonstop showgoer) Bob Boilen, featured The New Pornographers in full effect, with Neko Case and Dan Bejar both there, along with the rest of the band, including new touring member Coco Hames (of The Ettes). (NPR gave away tickets via Twitter.) The band sounded fantastic and they were all clearly having a blast, despite the sweatbox atmosphere. Drummer Kurt Dahle, in particular, seemed to be having a particularly good time, making faces while dropping crazy fills on new LP track, "Spidyr." (I think I spent half the show just watching him.)

The crowd was eased into the new album, starting with a couple oldies first -- "Moves" from Together then Bejar sauntered out for Challengers' nugget "Myriad Harbor." Then we got our first taste of Brill via the driving "Dancefloor Domine," which is a good showcase for the new arpeggiated-keys-ELO-ABBA vibe of the new album. We got about half of Brill Bruisers, including the title track which is much more a wall-of-sound force live than on record. (They played it on Letterman the night before, video below.) Bejar came back out for single "War on the East Coast" which was extra-energized by some crazy/effected guitar blasts by Newman.

Other older tracks included "The Laws Have Changed," "Twin Cinema," "Mass Romantic" (many cheers for that), and they finished the hourlong set with the "hey las" of Twin Cinema deep cut "The Bleeding Heart Show." I woulda personally liked a couple more from the new album -- specifically "Champions of Red Wine" and "Marching Orders" -- but it was a solid, leave 'em wanting more set and was easily the best New Pornographers show I've seen since the Electric Version tour.

The New Pornographers -- with Neko and Dan -- will be back in NYC when their fall tour hits Hammerstein Ballroom on November 17 with openers The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (tickets). More pics and setlist from the Brill Building show, plus the Letterman performance video, below...

Yesterday, Pitchfork posted their top 200 tracks of the decade so far, and today they've listed the top 100 albums to have come out between 2010-2014. There's some surprises on there. For example, I didn't expect to see Bon Iver's self-titled, their #1 album of 2011 and with a score of 9.5, rank as low as #27 on this list. I was also surprised to see Chief Keef make it but not, say, Shabazz Palaces or Schoolboy Q. And there's a few other glaring omissions: nothing by The National? Grizzly Bear? One thing that will surprise no one though, is their #1 pick.

As mentioned, Merge Records is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year, including the four-day Merge 25 festival which happens July 23 - 26 in Carrboro, NC. Merge has released the initial line-up, which includes Wye Oak, The Clientele, Destroyer, Caribou, Lambchop (performing Nixon), Neutral Milk Hotel, The Rock*A*Teens, Ex Hex, and Bob Mould. While day schedules haven't been announced events will happen at the following venues:

Full Festival Passes are $195 and will go on sale to the general public on Friday (3/21) at 11 am EST via the Cat's Cradle website. Individual tickets for the events in Carrboro will go on sale Wednesday, March 26 and the Duke University show goes on sale Tuesday, April 22.

Both Wye Oak and Ex Hex played our Saturday SXSW free day party this past weekend in Austin. Ex Hex (featuring Mary Timony of Helium and Wild Flag) put on a killer set of glammy powerpop. Pics from their performance are in this post and you can check out Wye Oak pics here. Ex Hex also have a new video for "Hot and Cold" that costars Ian Svenonius (Chain & the Gang, Make-Up, etc). You can watch that below.

Merge Records is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and they are planning a year-long celebration the culmination of which will be the Merge Festival which will happen July 23-26 in the label's hometown of Carrboro, NC. Line-up, tickets and other interesting details like those are still TBA, but you can watch a couple teaser videos below. (This will probably be one festival Outkastwon't be at, but you never know!) They last celebrated back in 2009 with XX Merge.

Additionally, you can subscribe to Merge's "Or Thousands of Prizes" singles club where you get a new 7" on colored vinyl every month featuring 25 of the label's artists, including Superchunk, Mikal Cronin, Mount Moriah, The Mountain Goats, The Clientele, Destroyer, King Khan & the Shrines, Lambchop, and more. Subscribers will also get a collector's box, t-shirt, a surprise bonus 12" single, new E-book version of The Merge Records Companion and first crack at Merge Fest tickets. You can still buy in.

There's also a Merge 25k road race on March 22 which runs from Chapel Hill to Durham and more fun stuff to be announced. They gave their website a nice redesign too. Looking good at a quarter century, Merge!

Destroyer's Five Spanish Songs EP will be in stores on Monday, but you can listen to it now via Hype Machine.

Produced by JC/DC and recorded at their studio in Vancouver earlier this summer, Five Spanish Songs features musical contributions from Nicolas Bragg, David Carswell, John Collins, Stephen Hamm, and Josh Wells.

Dan Bejar aka Destroyer brought his most recent tour to Bowery Ballroom in NYC on 11/10, and we have some pictures from that show in this post. More of them below...

It was 2013. The English language seemed spent, despicable, not easily singable. It felt over for English; good for business transactions, but that's about it. The only other language I know is Spanish, and the only Spanish songs I really know are those of Sr. Chinarro, led by Antonio Luque. I've been a decades-long fan of how he conducted his affairs, his strange words, his melodies that have always felt so natural (this is important), his bitter songs about painting the light. Something about them, I knew I could do it...

- Dan Bejar

Destroyer will follow up 2011's incredible Kaputt, with a five-song Spanish language EP featuring five covers of songs by Antonio Luque. Five Spanish Songs was produced by longtime collaborators JC/DC and will be out November 29.

No songs from the EP have been released yet, but you might hear some of them on Bejar's solo tour which hits NYC on November 10 at Bowery Ballroom with Pink Mountaintops opening. Tickets for that show are still available.

After his North American tour (to which he's added a couple shows since we last posted), Bejar heads to Europe to do the same. Updated tour dates are listed below.

While Dan Bejar muses over how to follow up Destroyer's 2011's near-perfect Kaputt (my favorite album of that year), he'll be going on a solo tour in November, playing songs from throughout his career...and maybe a couple new ones? The tour hits NYC on 11/10 at at Bowery Ballroom. Pink Mountaintops open and tickets just went on sale.

All tour dates are listed, along with the video for "Savage Night at the Opera," below.

As mentioned, Destroyer will hit the road next month for a North American tour which comes to NYC on June 18 at Brooklyn Masonic Temple and June 19 at Le Poisson Rouge. When we first discussed those shows, no openers had been announced yet, but openers for both shows have since been revealed.

Sandro Perri (who we we profiled HERE) will join Destroyer on most of the tour, including the Brooklyn Masonic Temple show. Tickets for that show are still available.

Meanwhile, the LPR show will be opened by Drag City-signed Sophia Knapp. Tickets for that show are still available. That show is one of a few Sophia will be playing this June, including another NYC show which happens at Knitting Factory on June 28. Tickets for that show are on sale now.

All Sandro Perri and Sophia Knapp dates, along with some videos below...

Armed with the "Destroyer Orchestra," Dan Bejar is ably reproducing the lush grooves of last year's Kaputt (my favorite album of 2012). Destroyer's show at Webster Hall last year was terrific, so do go see them this time around.

All Destroyer tour dates are below, along with footage of Destroyer's recent Coachella performance.

"The earlier part of the afternoon felt a little sleepy. People waking up late after Friday, taking their time getting to the festival, and the earliest bands on the bill usually have a gentler style of music anyway. That all changed, for us at least, with the arrival of the Buzzcocks, those spiky, rapid-fire elder statesmen of melodic British punk, on stage in the Gobi tent.

Founders Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle look older now -- it's been 35 years or so since they launched the band --but their voices are strong, their rapid-fire guitar riffing still delivers an electric current to the brain. And, bonus for fans on Saturday, the short length of many of their songs meant you got a whole lot of Buzzcocks packed into a 55-minute set." [Orange County Register]

Before Radiohead closed out Saturday with a near-2 hour headlining set, Coachella-goers were treated to live music by Jeff Mangum, the Buzzcocks, Squeeze, fIREHOSE, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Bon Iver (videos & setlist HERE), Andrew Bird, The Shins, SBTRKT, Flying Lotus, A$AP Rocky (who played at the same time as Radiohead), Feist, Noel Gallagher, Destroyer, Grace Potter, The Head and the Heart, and many more.

Destroyer did a fair amount of touring last year in support of Kaputt, which was one of our favorite albums of the year. After playing Coachella this April, he'll kick off another tour in support of the album in June which hits NYC on June 18 at Brooklyn Masonic Temple. Tickets for the Brooklyn show go on sale Friday (3/2) at 9 AM. All dates are listed below.

In related news, Destroyer's Dan Bejar and his old band Points Gray are planning to issue their 2000 LP Offshore on vinyl. It was initially only released in a limited amount of CD-Rs. The band are raising money on IndieGoGo to press the album. You can check out the campaign video below.

I hate writing year-end lists, as might be obvious to many long-time BrooklynVegan readers. That said, I also like them. They help organize things, which is related to my problem though. I'm too unorganized and hectic to ever get around to making one! But this year a few of us (BrooklynVegan contributors) got together and decided to come up with a collective list of albums that we loved that we think most represented 2011 in BrooklynVegan land. Our indie rock-centric list purposely does not include metal (that's HERE) or hip hop (we should make a separate list). With that in mind, our top 26 albums of 2011, in alphabetical order, are listed (with some commentary and a list of honorable mentions too) below...

We already posted Pitchfork's and SPIN's, so... here's Rolling Stone's top 50 albums of 2011. It's got tons of big sellers and major label players taking high spots like Adele, Jay-Z and Kanye West, Paul Simon, and Lady Gaga, but then something unexpected like tUnE-yArDs places at #13. There are also some odd inclusions like Wavves' Life Sux EP and then some albums you could only find on a Rolling Stone list like SuperHeavy (the supergroup featuring Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Damian Marley, and others). They also give shots to Little Dragon, Josh T Pearson, Das Racist, Wild Flag, and many more. Check out the full list below...

One of the artists, Austra, will release a remix EP to follow-up their latest release Feel it Break. The remix collection, entitled SPARKLE will be released digitally on July 26th and on wax on August 23rd. The release features remix contributions from MNDR, Mark Pistel, and Planningtorock with the digital collection having an additional four bonus remixes. Preorder it at Domino, and download/stream one track, "Spellwork (MNDR Nighttime Remix)" above/below.

Destroyer's new album, Kaputt, is Dan Bejar's grandest musical statement to date, resplendent with horns and bubbling sequencers, bringing to mind Roxy Music, The Blue Nile and even Steely Dan. In order to replicate Kaputt's lush sound, Bejar put together the "Destroyer Orchestra," an eight member band more than up to the task, as heard last night (4/3) at Webster Hall.

Much credit for this should be given to saxophonist/flautist Joseph Shabason and, in particular, trumpet player J.P. Carter who is like the Kevin Shields of trumpet players. Carter ran his instrument through a couple delay/loop pedals, making it sound epic and weird and amazing. It mixed with the sax and lead guitar to form this sonic swarm that hovered around the songs all night. It was rather magical, so much so that Bejar spent much of the time not singing crouched down, swigging his drink and quietly digging this world of sound he helped orchestrate.

The rest of the band brought the laid back groove, so prevalent on Kaputt of which we got all but two songs (No "Savage Night at the Opera" or "Poor in Love.") "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" and Kaputt's title track were especially good. The expanded line-up also elevated older songs in the set like "Painter in Your Pocket" that was transformed into a lost Al Stewart single from 1978. (Dan Bejar has always kinda been the indie Al Stewart.) The only thing missing was Sibel Thrasher, whose vocals are such a big part of Kaputt. Keyboardist Larrisa Loyva sang her parts ably, but lacked Thrasher's gravitas and soul.

The night's showstopper came with the encore -- the nearly 15 minute "Bay of Pigs" which was released as a single in 2009 and closes the album. Bejar needed a lyrics sheet, but much of the crowd didn't. A group of girls next to me shouted out the lyrics with the kind of enthusiasm you half expect the taciturn Bejar to display. I'm pretty sure it was that group of girls who launched a pair of undies onto the stage. Bejar smiled, and gave them to the saxophonist who proceeded to throw them back into the crowd. He's just not that kind of frontman.

The War on Drugs opened, but I missed them entirely. We have pictures of them though, More pictures from the whole night, Destroyer's setlist and video of "Painter in Your Pocket", below....

Welcome to the You Didn't Get Tickets to LCD Soundsystem edition of This Week in Indie. Or maybe some of you don't care about James Murphy's Last Hurrah, and if so you can consider this the I Don't Give a Crap About LCD Soundsystem edition of TWII. Luckily for everyone, this is another bonkers week for shows and there's bound to be something for everyone -- even if I don't write about it here.

Let's begin with what is my most-anticipated show of the weekend -- Destroyer, who play Webster Hall on Sunday (4/3). (Tickets are still available.) I have friends who are Dan Bejar obsessives, but I've always been more of a casual fan. Destroyer's new album, Kaputt, is a masterpiece and easily my favorite of 2011 so far. Gone are the chintzy synths and thin production, replaced by glorious '80s widescreen pop that brings to mind (mine, at least) The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout. It's got the scope and the arrangements I always imagine Bejar wanted for his songs but never had the means to make real.

It's also the first album I've loved in a long time that has this much saxophone on it. I don't think there's a song on Kaput without it, and it's of the variety that makes you think of a city in the rain. Maybe the saxophonist is playing in the rain on a fire escape somewhere? Or maybe that's just every music video from the '80s. Anyway, Kaputt is evocative of that era for sure but Bejar's unmistakable urbane style keeps it out of cheeseball territory.

For this tour, Bejar has assembled an "eight-piece Destroyer orchestra" to bring Kaputt to life on stage. My friend Toby (who does the blog The Finest Kiss) saw the show in Seattle and said, "Seeing Dan Bejar play with a small band or solo under the his Destroyer moniker was always good, but I had never been blown away. I knew I was going to hear the songs from his latest Kaputt, but I had no idea that what I would get would far exceed that very good record and as well as any expectations I had." That raises my expectations quite a bit, but it does make me more excited... even if the show is at Webster Hall.

BOAT

This weekend also marks the return of Seattle's BOAT, longtime TWII faves whose scrappy underdog status may be in jeopardy. Pitchfork, who has barely acknowledged their existence in the past, gave BOAT's great new album Dress Like Your Idols a 7.6 (besting the day's big review by about two points):

"BOAT's fourth album, then, finds the Crane-fronted four-piece going through something of an underachiever's quarter-life crisis. On one hand, Dress Like Your Idols sees Crane, drummer Jackson Long, bassist/guitarist Mark McKenzie, and multi-instrumentalist Josh Goodman finally making their way into a real studio for the first time. On the other hand, that studio-- Seattle's Two Sticks Audio-- is already defunct. And the songs, like the album cover, are as inspired by the band's youth as ever, merging Stephen Malkmus's obliquely deadpan twang, Tullycraft's sugary scene-skewering, and Modest Mouse's "reptile boy" yelp. Where some slightly younger slackers have been opting for warped 1980s synth-pop, BOAT continue to love the 90s: an era when they didn't know, as per the rueful title track, that "the job you wanted doesn't exist." The result is the best album yet from a band whose style finally appears to be back in vogue, though its sometimes-bitterly sardonic humor still won't be for everybody."

Now part of this may be that the '90s are indeed now fully in fashion again, but if DLYI is of slightly higher fidelity (none of their albums could be called low-fi), it's still what BOAT has done along -- make tuneful, smart, funny, occasionally anthemic indie rock. This time they're just wearing their influences on the cover of their album. Check out "Forever in Armitron" at the top of this post.

AlsoSaturday night (4/2) is the record release party for Obits' second album, Moody, Standard and Poor, which is happening at The Bell House. As a bunch of indie rock vets, Obits aren't so much set in their ways as they know what they like. You know what you're getting with an Obits album, but this new one has a little more breathing room than I Blame You, but rocks all the same. And anyone who's seen Obits play knows they bring it live, no muss no fuss.

Also playing the Bell House show are California's Tijuana Panthers who were last here in December. As I wrote then, these guys are pals with The Soft Pack and evoke a similar -- if less aggressive, more party-oriented -- style of '60s surf rock. You can listen to the entirety of Tijuana Panthers' self-released debut, Max Baker, via a widget at the bottom of this post. Good stuff. Tijuana Panthers also play Friday (4/1) at Pianos as part of a solid bill that includes the Sundelles (also playing Obits' show), Shark?, and Air Waves. That is an excellent Friday night option.

Wu Lyf

What else? As you may have heard, WU LYFare making their U.S. debut this weekend, playing tomorrow night at Glasslands (a show BV is presenting) which is sold out, and then Saturday (4/2) at Shea Stadium. To go to the Saturday show, you have to RSVP. And once you get there, you have to pay $10. I don't know what to make of this Manchester band -- they are careful controllers of their image and we haven't heard much in the way of released music -- but I am intrigued. Says UK music mag The Fly:

Far from being arrogant or appearing above their audience, tonight the band seem lost in their own world, having left the window open for all to see. Roberts is an intense and unforgettable performer, but his bandmates back him with a sound that flits between sparkling and cavernous with a rhythm section pounding a self-affirmed beat destined for far bigger venues than this South London archway. Connected to his organ throughout, Roberts only separates himself from the instrument to sip from a teacup between songs. The cacophony of noise he and his band make is not ground-breakingly unique, a meeting point of Nick Cave and Wild Beasts as displayed on 'Spitting It Concrete Like The Golden Sun God' for example, however, the fire burning inside Wu Lyf, a light that only shines in the souls of a select few, is a truly special one off.

We'll see, right? The Glasslands show features Wise Blood, True Womanhood, and DJ True Panther. Saturday's will feature sets by Total Slacker and Wise Blood.

That's the bulk of this weekend's action. Actually that's not true, there's lots more but I hit most of the stuff I'm interested in. More picks, day-by-day, are below.

JEFF the Brotherhood

THURSDAY, MARCH 31

JEFF the Brotherhoodare at Santos tonight. Their second album, We Are the Champions, is out sometime soon and features songs called "Ripper" and "Shredder" so you know it both rips and shreds. It does! JEFF rules and surely you've seen them by now and if you haven't...go to this show! And more reason to go: Screaming Females, Juiceboxxx and Teen Witch. They also play their NYC spiritual home, Death by Audio, on Saturday but I'm gonna guess that show will be sardine city...not for the squeamish!

"As previously announced, the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival will be taking place on Friday, July 15th through Sunday, July 17th at Chicago's Union Park! Tickets went on sale on March 4th, and, as predicted, three-day passes sold out in a record time of 24 hours! That said, eager prospective festival goers should fear not, as single-day passes are still available for the totally reasonable price of $45.

And now, without further ado, the newest additions to the 2011 Pitchfork Festival lineup! Friday will see the addition of Guided By Voices and Neko Case; Saturday's lineup will feature No Age, Gang Gang Dance, G-Side, and Chrissy Murderbot; Sunday's stellar lineup now includes The Fresh & Onlys, Radio Dept., HEALTH, Shabazz Palaces, Baths, How To Dress Well, Kurt Vile, and Twin Sister. Stay tuned for more bands still to be announced in the coming weeks!"

Guided by Voices are also playing the sold out Sasquatch Fest. Full Pitchfork lineup by day below...

"the 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival will be taking place on Friday, July 15th through Sunday, July 17th! Tickets will officially be on sale today at 12 PM CST, with single-day tickets for $45 and three-day passes for $110! If last year was any indicator, three-day passes will sell out in under a week (last year they sold out in FIVE DAYS!), so be sure to get your tickets ASAP!"